1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a sheet conveying device applied to an image forming apparatus such as an electrophotographic copying apparatus, a micro instrument or a recording apparatus. Particularly, it relates to a sheet conveying device which is capable of correcting the direction of conveyance of a sheet when the sheet becomes deviated from a predetermined direction of conveyance in the course of conveyance, and conveying the sheet in the predetermined direction of conveyance.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
An example of the oblique feeding correcting device according to the prior art is of a construction in which a pair of correcting rollers disposed obliquely with the direction of movement of a paper sheet are provided and this pair of correcting rollers are caused to strike against a reference edge when the paper sheet is liberated from the last pair of conveyor rollers and then the paper sheet is fed forwardly along the reference edge. A disadvantage peculiar to such construction is that the correction of the oblique feeding of the passing paper sheet effected by the obliquely disposed correcting rollers does not take place until the paper sheet is liberated from the last pair of conveyor rollers. When not in such a situation, said rollers impart a load to the paper sheet and therefore may sometimes wrest or wrinkle the paper sheet. Also, the rollers may erase the image on the paper sheet and this is particularly inconvenient, for example, when the paper sheet in the copying apparatus bears thereon an unfixed toner image or the like. Moreover, even when the paper sheet finally comes into contact with the reference edge and further moves forward along the reference edge in said direction, the correcting rollers may erase the image on the paper sheet in the same manner as described previously.